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Copyright © 1994 by Abbenford Associates
Excerpt from The Sunborn copyright © 2004 by Abbenford Associates
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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ISBN: 978-0-446-55904-1
First eBook Edition: February 2005
Contents
Copyright Page
PROLOGUE: True Center
PARTICLE STORM
PART ONE: Far Antiquity
ONE: Techno-Nomads
TWO: The Sail-Snake
THREE: The Rule of Number
FOUR: Pale Immensities
FIVE: Ancient Flavors
SIX: The Song of Electrons
PART II: The Eater of All Things
ONE: Hard Pursuit
TWO: The Shredded Star
THREE: Besik Bay
FOUR: Motes Such As You
FIVE: Tiny Minds
SIX: Lightning Life
SEVEN: A Taste of the Void
EIGHT: The Aperture Moment
NINE: The Cyaneans
Photovores
PART THREE: The Time Pit
ONE: Deep Reality
TWO: Honeycomb Home
THREE: The Far Black
FOUR: A Day in Court
FIVE: Trans-History
SIX: The Charm of Commerce
SEVEN: Animal Spirits
PART FOUR: Gravity’s Gullet
ONE: The Esty Wind
TWO: Time’s Grip
THREE: The Rock of Chaos
FOUR: Unsettled Movement
FIVE: Hard Spark
SIX: Mind Surgery
PART FIVE: Malign Attentions
ONE: The Pain of Eternity
TWO: Rational Laughter
THREE: Casualties
FOUR: Salvage
FIVE: The Sea of Sand
SIX: Eating the Storm
SEVEN: Passing Currents
Timeline of Galactic Series
About the Author
A preview of “The Sunborn”
The Galactic Center Series by Gregory Benford
TIME’S GRIP
He lifted his right hand—
—and it wouldn’t budge. It lay palm-up on smooth, cool timestone. The flesh near his knuckles felt cold, stiff. He pulled harder. A little give, not much. “Quath, I’m stuck. It’s got me.”
He yanked harder. The right hand came free with an awful ripping sound—and a flash of white-hot pain.
<I should have realized. Timestone is not truly solid. It is compressed events, rendered as mass. Press against it long enough and you become part of the event.>
“What ‘event’? That stuff tried to eat me.”
<Do not ascribe intention to physical law. Your skin began to diffuse into the occurrence-space which this substance is.>
“You mean everything here can sop us up, like sponges?”
ACCLAIM FOR GREGORY BENFORD’S CLASSIC NOVELS OF THE GALACTIC CENTER
TIDES OF LIGHT
“Benford’s most adventurous, most philosophical, and most scientifically creative novel.”
—Houston Press
“Mr. Benford is a rarity: a scientist who writes with verve and insight not only about black holes and cosmic strings but about human desires and fears.”
—New York Times Book Review
SAILING BRIGHT ETERNITY
“As at the end of any great symphony, one can only stand and applaud.”
—Asimov’s Science Fiction
“A worthy conclusion to what now should be acknowledged as the most important and involving hard SF series yet written.”
—Publishers Weekly
ALSO BY GREGORY BENFORD
Fiction
Beyond Infinity
The Sunborn
The Martian Race
Eater
The Stars in Shroud
Jupiter Project
Shiva Descending (with William Rostler)
Heart of the Comet (with David Brin)
A Darker Geometry (with Mark O. Martin)
Beyond the Fall of Night (with Arthur C. Clarke)
Against Infinity
Cosm
Foundation’s Fear
Artifact
Timescape
The Galactic Center Series
In the Ocean of Night
Across the Sea of Suns
Great Sky River
Tides of Light
Furious Gulf
Sailing Bright Eternity
Non-fiction
Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia
For Joan, forever
PROLOGUE
True Center
Toby watched his father walk the hull.
Killeen was a silvery figure, his suit tuned to reflect as much radiation as possible. A mirror man. Slick light slid over him as he moved, shimmering with the phosphorescence of stars and gas. Toby could follow Killeen’s smooth, slow lope as a rippling warp against the fiery background.